Lessons in French (30 page)

sixt
y

I had been in Paris for a year, and it was drizzling again. I had packed up and spent the night in Étienne’s apartment and was making my way to the Schells’ to perform my final task. The city was awash in familiar names as I walked from the Bastille toward St. Paul, across the Pont Marie to the Île St-Louis, where I would pass up a Berthillon cone, over to the Île de la Cité, around Notre-Dame and across the Seine again to the Left Bank, up the boulevard St-Michel, and through the Luxembourg. All these words were so saturated with meaning for me that I barely needed to pronounce them to know where I was.

As I turned up our particular
rue,
so embroidered now in my mind that the purring cars and the clatter of high heels seemed to originate in my ears, I saw Clarence disappear around the far corner. Banished from Lydia’s photo shoot, he was probably going to take refuge with Henri. I figured it was only a matter of time before Lydia told him about my romance with Olivier and he became disgusted with me.

Rain was falling in earnest now. I reached No. 60 and punched in the door code. Madame Fidelio was standing inside. She had been on vacation for the past few weeks, and I had almost forgotten her existence. Her solid frame was reassuring. Over the year, we had grown fond of one another. Her face was a surprising relief, like the first sighting of my mom down an airport corridor after a long semester at school.

“Madame Lydia says you are leaving us. It is a shame. But I understand.
Je comprends
.”

“You do? You understand?”

“Ce n’est pas facile.”
She motioned across the rain-dark courtyard to the marble stairway she had so cautiously led me up last September. “No, it is not easy in that family. You were
admirable.
”

No I wasn’t admirable. I was an idiot for still not having bought my own umbrella despite repeated advice from an ex-pat who knew. I was soaked. “Thank you, Madame Fidelio. You’re right, it is not easy, but it is sometimes very interesting and that’s what I think I came for. It was an experience.”

She laughed. “
Intéressant! En effet, ils font les intéressants! Ah, c’est trop bon, ça!”

“I have to get inside. The photographers from
Libération
will be here any minute.”

“Photographers? Here?
Mon dieu.
” She rolled her eyes to the wet sky.

sixt
y
-one

Lydia told me to wait in the living room while she finished getting dressed and to answer the door for the photographer and his assistant if they came. “Just stay in here.” The subtext being keep out of my study and out of my kitchen, you little rodent.

I knew she did not need me here to translate. If anyone could orchestrate a photo shoot, it was Lydia Schell. Did she want to impress upon me one last time the sort of glamour and importance I would be losing out on as soon as I boarded that plane to New York, where, she was right, I knew virtually no one who mattered? Did she want to hit me with one final image of all that I was losing out on?

After a few minutes, she returned.

“How do I look?” she asked me.

“Fabulous.”

She had styled herself in a fitted black silk button-down shirt, the same one she had bought Portia in their back-to-school trip to agnès b. Her makeup was more perceptible than usual, particularly on the cheeks. And there was a chalkiness under her eyes where the shadows usually were. Her lipstick was plum.

A touch creepy to the naked eye, this look would surely translate into freshness on camera.

Below her breastbone, she wore a large pendant, jet-black with ornate golden borders that could be Middle Eastern. Or maybe Victorian. She was a compact and alluring force.

The doorbell rang.

“Go,” she mouthed.

When I came back with the photographer and his assistant, Lydia explained that, since the rain appeared to have let up, the pictures would be taken in the garden and that, while we were setting up, I could be the stand-in for her husband, Clarence, who would be here any minute. I was almost his height. She had sent him out to buy a new shirt. “He’s written a major book about fashion writing. It’s fascinating, and I’ll make sure it gets into the article because you French will love it.
Vous allez adorer mon mari,
” she said proudly, “but he doesn’t own a shirt that works with his skin tone. So, I’ve sent him to Alain Figaret for the right shade of pink. He will be back momentarily.”

Clarence in pink? Clarence in the photograph for
her
big profile in
Libération
? “But, Lydia, excuse me, I thought Clarence wasn’t coming today. I thought you said—”

“Well, my dear, I’m afraid you’re already out of the loop. And why would you think I wouldn’t want my husband by my side in a major piece about my life in Paris?”

“Isn’t it about your work?”

“My work is my life. And if my children were here, I’d have
them
in front of the camera too. Does that answer your question?”

We led the photographer down the hallway, through the kitchen and out onto the back steps down to the garden. The bright orange extension cord that I had bought so that Clarence would be able to see it and not trip when I was working in the garden was coiled now on the landing.

The sun had come out. Leaves were beginning to turn. I pictured Clarence, his new pink shirt folded in a fancy bag under his arm, rushing through the streets so that he wouldn’t be late.

Lydia checked her watch as she sat down on one of the chairs she had placed in front of the beloved rose bush.

The photographer suggested he get a few shots of her alone while they waited. She got up and looked at his light meter, then returned to her place.

I had thought it might be strange for her to be the object of an image, to find herself on the other side of the camera. But she was teaching me, yet again, that art was about framing, not about where you stood.

While the camera clicked, Lydia sat still, her eyes fixed on a branch chosen for reasons known only to her.

The photographer told me to hold a black umbrella high over her head. He asked, could I move a little to the left, please? I was peeking into the shot. No, that wasn’t right at all. The umbrella was drooping.

He sighed and looked sympathetically at Lydia as if to say that his own assistant was an idiot too. With a smile, she returned his sigh. Useless, all of us.

He asked his assistant, a young man with a mottled neck like Joshua’s, to hold the umbrella instead.
“Ça ne peut pas être pire.”
It couldn’t be worse. I should simply stand back and out of the way, he said.

So, I did. I saw Lydia against the vined background of overripe roses. What did she look like?

She was a petite woman, perhaps not as thin as she hoped to be, but elegant and elongated despite the shortness of her limbs. Her rough skin was smoothed now by makeup. She had short brown hair, highlighted an expensive burgundy color. She was graceful, well dressed. Her mouth was pursed, worked into leanness by a constant movement of silent formulations. She was relaxing it now, I could tell, at great effort. Her too-prominent eyes burned with small calculations and otherworldly intelligence. She was petty and she was larger than life.

With my own blind need for sense, I stared at her. But the more I tried to read, the more abstract she became until her eyes were globes and her cheeks were fading roses and her hair was sun. And then there were only shapes and colors and webs of light. Nothing would stay literal.

“Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle!
Wake up!
Merde!”
The photographer was yelling at me in disgust. I had never failed so completely to win someone over. I had lost my touch. “We are ready for you to take the part of the husband now. Please go sit in that other chair.”

But, at that moment, Lydia smiled up to the top of the garden stairs where Clarence stood in a pale pink shirt that looked great on him. We did not know how long he had been surveying us.

“Hi, Clarence!” I called out, running toward him. Would he stay my friend? Would he continue to care about me and protect me from irrational swings of fate? After all, he had an overarching mind, right? I had to say something to him, anything. “Clarence,” I babbled, “I have this new idea . . .”

He looked crossly down at the steps. His lips shook.

I saw then that it was too late, that the time for us had passed, that he knew everything. But I could not stop. “Clarence, look, I got a new extension cord, an orange one. So no one will break their necks on the stairs. Remember when you said you were going to break your neck on my extension cords? Remember that night?”

Nothing.

“Check it out. It’s my legacy. I’m on my way out, but the extension cord is here to stay.” My fluency had deserted me. I could not make sense. “Remember what Henri said about legacies at lunch that time? About being in the way of chance and his favorite knife?”

Clarence brushed by me.

“Voici mon mari, l’écrivain,
” said Lydia to the photographer, getting up to embrace Clarence as he came toward her. “His new book is going to be huge.”

As he and Lydia walked toward their garden chairs, Clarence risked one last over-the-shoulder look at me. It was scathing.

•   •   •

When they were finished, Clarence disappeared into the house. I never saw him again.

Lydia dropped a final, punitive hint about Salman Rushdie perhaps coming to hide in Paris, not so very far from here.

“Lydia, no matter what, I’m not writing to Portia.”

“I know. Sometimes it’s best to leave a spent situation behind you without looking back. If you’re going to go to New York, then don’t try to remedy anything now. Don’t overthink it. We will obviously be fine in this household. But as far as you’re concerned, just know that some things can’t be salvaged, and you’re young enough for a fresh start. Burning bridges is not the end of the world. People will try to tell you it is, but they’re wrong. Sometimes, bridge-burning is the best policy.”

“But I don’t want to forget what has happened here, Lydia. And I also want to make something clear, if you’ll permit a domestic to speak her mind. I think I’ve done a good job. Professionally, did I ever let you down?”

“You insist on this divide between professionalism and personal loyalty that doesn’t exist! Fine, I admit you did your job well, if you don’t count your various betrayals, but I cannot recommend you to any of my friends, not professionally or at all. I’ve given you something, though, haven’t I?”

“I think so, but I still don’t know what it is.”

“I’ve armed you to be ambitious, my dear.”

I began to laugh. “My cousins call me Rastignac!”

“Then go forth and be hungry!”

•   •   •

My Métro ride from Paris to the airport was without incident. I had mailed my few boxes ahead and was traveling light.

By the time I boarded the plane, my latest version of Paris was already falling into the lightness and shadow of memory. Parts would be overexposed, parts would be stressed to obsession, parts would remain strange. Someday, I would retrace it through the dozens of letters I had kept.

As I flew west, a layer of myself calcified into something pearlier, milkier than before. I was no longer quite crystalline, no longer accent-free to the point of invisibility. There was something to me now. Perhaps, I thought with an inner wink to Lydia, it was a sharper appetite. Or a deep knowledge of trouble. You might call it experience. Although Mom would say that you couldn’t yet take it to the bank.

acknowled
g
ments

This book has many friends.

I would like to thank Lizzie Gottlieb, who first told me to write
Lessons in French
. I will always remember the sparkle of your voice and the sparkle in your eye. And Bob Gottlieb, its first reader and most prescient critic.

Shireen Jilla, nobody read it more times or lavished more light and enthusiasm than you. You cared about every word and you are a part of the book.

Margie Stohl and Rafi Simon, my wine-writing partners in crime, there from the beginning in Otranto, you are my rock and my other brain.

John Wyatt, thanks for the unshakable writerly connection and the faith.

I would like to thank Joanna Hershon for having the courage of her convictions and giving me the best of all possible insights. Your intelligence is generous and radiant, and I owe you everything.

Gretchen Crary, basking in the fierceness of your loyalty is one of the greatest pleasures of being published. Thank you, “smart woman.”

I am ever grateful to my Proust group, Ann Brashares, Dave Gilbert and Amor Towles for the adventures in reading and rereading. You are my Sonate de Vinteuil.

My original female bonders, Kelli Block, Sarah Burnes, Nancy Donahoe, Kimbrough Towles, Maggie Towles, Stephanie Vogel and Fiona Watt, you are my memory bank and the light of my life.

Kimbrough, you have been running by my side inspiring me to write forever.

Sarah, you have been my loyal sounding board.

Elizabeth Bogner, Jasie Britton, Hilary Garland, Claudia Grazioso, Julia and Jon Hall, Hannah Nordhaus, Coralie Hunter, Katherine and Joeri Jacobs, Maggie Parker, Caroline and François Reyl, Gary Shapiro, and Amy Zilliax, you are the book’s earliest and most constant and creative friends. It loves you back.

Julia, I treasure your cover.

Joeri, you were right about Kate.

Thanks to those of you who have gone out of your way to show support and enthusiasm for the book: Beret Arcaya, Alain and Micheline Barthe, Carl Blumstein, Stephanie Cabot, Elka, Nick, and Susan Cloke, Joan Cohen, Alex Coulter, Kimberly Cowser, Dee Dee DeBartlo, Stephanie Douglass, Monique El Faizy, Charlie and Ellie Garland, Susie Gilbert, John Gill, Latifa Haimani, Lynne Hamilton, Kali Handelman, Sebastian Heath, Astrid Herbette, Mary Herms, Paola Iacucci, Lindita Iasilli, Olivia and Daniele Jungling, Anita Kawatra, Marthe Keller, Ben Lieberman, George Loening, Dale Loy, Stephen McCauley, Paula McLain, Linda Marini, Seema Merchant, Erin O’Conner, Brian O’Neill, Maureen O’Neill, Maureen O’Sullivan, Kirsten O’Reilly, Karen Palmer, Chris Parris-Lamb, Stéphane and Véronique Perichon, Janet Perlman, Johanna Povirk-Znoy, Eldine and Dominique Reyl, Victoria Rowan, Gretchen Rubin, Rachel Scher, Andrea Scarf, Liesl Schillinger, Shannon Thyne, Maria Tucci, Klara Vogel, Jessee and Lena Wolff, and Father Ambrose Wolverton.

Stéphanie Abou, I could not have dreamed up a more brilliant, passionate or dynamic agent. You are the book’s champion, a fabulous editor and friend, and my hero.

Thank you to Anjali Singh, my delightful and deeply sensitive editor, who has shed boundless intelligence on this novel. Your clarity and sense of proportion have brought it to life.

I so appreciate the tireless and ever-positive team at Simon & Schuster, Millicent Bennett, Nina Pajak and Anne Tate, Michele Bové and Sarah Nalle, Gypsy da Silva and Fred Wiemer. Your energy is palpable and sustaining.

Katie Espiner, at HarperCollins in London, you are a joy. Thank you for bringing your warmth to bear on this book and for always letting me know how much you believe in it.

I am grateful to Renate Liesker and Tanja Hendriks at Artemis in Amsterdam, to Caspian Dennis at the Abner Stern Agency in London, and to the editors in various parts of the world who have given the book wings.

My French “family,” Bernadette and Michel Perichon, Alison and Jim Clayson, Christine Coenon and Jean-Luc Andr
é,
you are my French roots.

I would like to thank my family. My sister, Eleanor O’Neill, is the world’s best proofreader and my soulmate and biggest fan. I’m your biggest fan too, always. My mother, Harriet Whelan, who might be more excited about this book than I am, your optimism is my lifeline. My father, Tim Whelan, is still whispering to me to “write it all down.” He is smiling up from every word.

My bright and beautiful daughters, Ella, Margaux and Iris, you are brimming with wonderful ideas. Thank you for your sense of humor and your crazy enthusiasm. I adore you.

And finally, Charles Reyl, my love. This book is for you. You have never had a shadow of a doubt.